HS2 is an unpopular project that will shackle the country with more debt

The unjustifiable cost of high-speed rail

SIR – John Longworth and others (Letters, January 6) are quite wrong in their assertion that giving the green light to the proposed £32 billion High Speed 2 project will strengthen Britain’s position in the global economy. If anything, it will do quite the opposite.

Shackling the country with an extra £1,700 of debt for every British household at a time of austerity will undermine the recovery and inevitably lead to cuts, not only in other vital rail projects, but in other public services. This is why the TaxPayers’ Alliance has calculated that HS2 will actually cost four jobs for every one it creates, and why the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Directors, not to mention the British public, do not support it.

Britain has among the fastest city-to-city journey times in Europe and, according to a Euromonitor survey, higher rail-journey-time satisfaction than any of our main competitors. The role high-speed rail can play in our transport infrastructure is one of bringing faster, more frequent and reliable services that benefit the whole country rather than a single, eye-wateringly expensive project that will actually increase journey times for all but the fortunate few able to afford to use it.

HS2 will cost the Government £800 million in this parliament alone – enough to pay the salaries of 19,000 police officers. The Government must seize this opportunity to rein in such profligacy before any more damage can be done.

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SIR – One important point in the HS2 debate is the size of our island. In such a small area, there is a limit to the time you can save. And what is it worth, when you have to make your way through congested city traffic afterwards?

Doraine Potts Woodmancote, Gloucestershire

SIR – That Saudi Arabia and Morocco are ahead of us with high-speed rail (report, January 6) is no reason to follow their example. Neither country has a population more than a fraction of ours, while both are far larger in terms of geography, with large tracts of desert.

Alexander Murray Brampton, Cumberland

SIR – Railway mania abounded in the 19th century. In 1846 alone, no fewer than 276 Acts of Parliament were passed setting up new railway companies. Around a third of those authorised never progressed.

The growth of the middle class gave rise to the original investment. This meant that there was money available for the expansion of transport infrastructure. However, investors then realised that the railways were neither as lucrative an investment, nor as easy to build, as they had been led to believe.

James Bishop Wincanton, Somerset

Concentrate on care

SIR – As a Christian nurse who watched my mother slowly die of cancer, I read with sadness your report (January 6) on the findings of the independent Commission on Assisted Dying and fail to understand, if the recommended proposals are implemented, how they can be a positive step.

We should be concentrating on providing the best possible end-of-life care for these terminally ill patients, not giving them the added stress of having to decide on their treatment plan, and when to die.

In her final weeks, my mother spent 10 days in a coma with brief moments of consciousness. My father, four sisters and I spent those days with her, and with the support of family, friends, the local GP and nurses we shared a very precious time together – one that we would never have wanted snatched from us.

Liesje André Southend-on-Sea, Essex

SIR – As a life member of Dignity in Dying, I support any law that would allow the terminally ill to request medical assistance to die, albeit under the appropriate medical guidelines.

But what of the doctors who continue to practise euthanasia under the shadow of prosecution? Would not such a law also help to release such practitioners from the agonies they face when a terminally ill patient, medically deemed to be of sound mind but with no quality of life to look forward to, begs them to end their suffering?

On separate occasions, I have been approached by doctors caring for two of my dying relatives. In the case of the first relative, I was told that she had been consciously pulling out her drip, and that the decision had been taken not to re-insert it. In the second case, I was advised that as my relative had no quality of life to look forward to, no attempt would be made to resuscitate in the event of a relapse. I acquiesced to both proposals, and both relatives died peacefully.

How much longer must we wait for patients and their doctors to be spared their agonies?

Keith C. Armstrong Nottingham

More hereditary lords

SIR – Unlike Charles Moore (Comment, January 7), I like the idea of a single transferable vote, but do not think we should lose our only successful chamber to obtain it. One democratic chamber of government is bad enough.

We should keep the hereditary element, supplemented by judicious appointments of new peers which should be free of any political taint. Perhaps we could have a membership of 250 hereditary peers and 250 appointed peers. The House would then be reformed without losing its wonderful strengths.

Alexander Hopkinson-Woolley Bembridge, Isle of Wight

SIR – One clear way of correcting what is seen as the “democratic deficit” in the House of Lords is to have appointments to it made by a college of elected representatives from central, devolved and local governments.

David Damant Bath, Somerset

Rules of the game

SIR – Following the Royal Mint’s explanation of the football offside rule on the back of a 50p coin (Letters, January 7), will it be able to issue a summer version with the complexities of the LBW law explained in the same small space?

David Bristow Maldon, Essex

Hire the cheapest CEOs

SIR – After reading your report (January 7) on David Cameron reining in executive pay, it occurs to me that the best way to achieve this would be by competitive tendering for senior posts, as practised by the construction industry when looking for contractors and engineers.

The notion that remuneration needs to be as high as possible to attract the highest calibre of candidate must surely be discredited now that these “high calibre” individuals have put us all in queer street.

If faced with candidates for top jobs with similar experience and expertise, the posts should go to those prepared to do the work at the lowest cost, and shareholders should insist on this.

Joe Hayward Stanmore, Middlesex

One school of thought

SIR – My uncle, the son of a train driver, won a scholarship to his local grammar school, which enabled him to start a career in marine underwriting. The son of a shop assistant, I went to a grammar school, and after university enjoyed a successful corporate career. My wife, the daughter of a junior civil servant, went to her local grammar school and later became the managing director of a marketing agency.

Our collective experiences are at odds with the negative and dismissive commentary accompanying the BBC 4 programme The Grammar School: A Secret History. The social mobility generated by grammar schools was phenomenal.

R. J. Huband Ashton under Hill, Worcestershire

High-flying aviatrix

SIR – Harriet Quimby is not the only centennial British aviatrix deserving of greater recognition (Letters, January 6). Hilda Hewlett was the first woman to hold a British pilot’s licence. In 1912, she won a quick-start aviation competition. She also created and ran the famous Brooklands flying school, where pioneers including Thomas Sopwith took to the air. And she taught her son, Francis, to fly; he went on to a distinguished aviation career in both Britain and New Zealand.

Hilda Hewlett created and managed an aircraft manufacturing business in partnership with Gustav Blondeau. This produced more than 800 aeroplanes during the First World War, and employed up to 700 people. It also constructed an engine that was considered vital to the war effort.

Christopher J. Mettem High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

Wedgwood treasures must be saved for posterity

SIR – Loyd Grossman’s comments about the importance of heritage tourism to the economy (report, January 5) are to be applauded. They come at a time when the Wedgwood Museum is fighting for survival.

Its plight arises from pensions law changes which mean that the Wedgwood Museum Trust is liable for the debt of a pension fund with 7,000 members – the employees of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons – despite the Wedgwood family taking action half a century ago to separate the museum from the manufacturing company.

They took this action to guarantee that whatever happened to the manufacturing company, the museum would be saved in perpetuity for the nation. But their efforts have unravelled in a disastrous example of the law of unintended consequences.

We members of the Wedgwood family, as well as all the staff at the Wedgwood Museum, are devastated by the High Court’s ruling that the entire museum collection can now be sold to meet the pension deficit of another company.

This is sad evidence of Britain’s neglect of its cultural treasures – treasures that represent 250 years of this nation’s toil, craftsmanship, design and genius. We will now have to raise money to buy the very pieces of history that our family, together with employees and museum supporters worldwide, donated with the intention that they would be on display for the nation.

The collection comprises 10,000 pieces of British ceramics, art, archives, private letters and details of 250 years of scientific experiments, revolutionary marketing and exquisite design. We must take action to prevent it ending up overseas in private vaults. The Government has recently agreed to a £40 million increase in the budget for the London Olympics opening ceremony. Roughly a quarter of this sum would save the collection for ever.